%0 Web Page %D 2002 %T Hawking Hawkers: How high-profile policy dialogues can lead to downsizing of citizens’ statutory entitlements %A Gita Dewan Verma %K Citizens Entitlements %K Hawkers %K Land Policy %X

In February 2001 I was appointed planning consultant by a group of over 350 hawkers to assist their efforts to secure implementation of statutory Master Plan provisions for space for hawkers in markets, etc. In mid-2001 our simple but well-progressing efforts were derailed in a rude encounter with a high-profile policy dialogue precipitated by premier NGOs and engaging the highest levels in government and premised on the assumption that Master Plan provisions for hawkers did not exist!

As the twin tales of our efforts in support of the Master Plan and the policy dialogue that undermined it progressed, I found myself in a rare – even privileged – position as a planner and chronicler. I could chronicle as well as engage with two diametrically different perspectives on the same issue at two different levels. That all this was happening while the Master Plan was being revised also opened up opportunities for ‘tinkering’ with the unfolding script for a happy ending.

The chronicling I have done quite diligently. In October 2001 I put together a film and offered it to people in my government who were engaging on the issue. In February 2002 I put together a comprehensive document on both tales and offered that as well. In March 2002 I put together a power-point presentation based on it and offered that as well. My offers were made with the request to ‘write a happy ending’. Very few responded to the offer. None responded to the request.

By now, there are a dozen agencies of government intervening on the hawking issue – with no reference to the Master Plan. It does appear that not only will our local efforts not bear fruit, but also that downsizing of statutory provisions for hawkers is imminent in the on-going Master Plan review.

I would still like to believe that a lot of what is going on is a misunderstanding arising out of the fact that those engaging on the matter are seeing it only in parts. Therefore, from my continuing chronicle of the ‘whole’ I place on offer now an 8-page paper in six parts. The first four parts outline the 1990 Master Plan provisions, the development of the policy dialogue of 2001, its content, and implications of it disregarding statutory provisions. These are abstracted from the first half of my larger document of February 2002. The fifth part of the paper is an update, which along with the fourth and sixth explicates the whole into which separate initiatives of a full dozen agencies of government fit.

I offer this (in pursuit, again, of a happy ending) to MoUD, DDA, NCRPB, HUDCO/HSMI, SPA, DUAC / CoA, DMRC, MCD, Delhi Police, LG Office and PMO, all of whom have engaged on the hawking issue over the last year without reference to statutory Master Plan provisions for hawkers. I offer this, as my earlier offers, not as a ‘representation’ but from the common ground where the statutory Master Plan forms the source of my professional and their statutory/constitutional responsibility.

I am also sending it for views and suggestions to a few other people in and out of government who, I believe, are concerned about planned development and citizens’ entitlements in its benefits.

%B Delhi Master Plan (2021) Revision Monitor %S MPISG %I Architexturez Imprints %C New Delhi %8 14/05/2002 %G eng %! Hawking Hawkers